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Wow - I think I need to come and get lessons in what photoshop can do lol. I tend to just reject images that cannot be sorted in Lightroom

It’s just that I cut my teeth in Photoshop and Bridge. Had I started in Lightroom, I’d probably be better at it. Right now, even with video help, most of the brush use in LR just gets me in trouble. I can open in Photoshop and do what I need to do immediately...if I make a mistake I just go back in the history panel to before the mistake was made. There are adjustments with the sliders I love in LR. I just prefer to do what I do best in each program. I think some of the interface in LR isn’t nearly as straightforward as it is in Photoshop, and I just might be too dense to “get” it. I watch videos and I think, “Good God, that’s amazing!” Then I can’t duplicate it.

Betty

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It’s just that I cut my teeth in Photoshop and Bridge. Had I started in Lightroom, I’d probably be better at it. Right now, even with video help, most of the brush use in LR just gets me in trouble. I can open in Photoshop and do what I need to do immediately...if I make a mistake I just go back in the history panel to before the mistake was made. There are adjustments with the sliders I love in LR. I just prefer to do what I do best in each program. I think some of the interface in LR isn’t nearly as straightforward as it is in Photoshop, and I just might be too dense to “get” it. I watch videos and I think, “Good God, that’s amazing!” Then I can’t duplicate it.

Betty

Ditto once again. I've been involved with Photoshop since version one and a daily user since 2.5 which, if I recall correctly, is when they introduced layers. Back then each new version was a major step forward. Now it's become a kind of dance where a lot of the steps seem to be sideways. (I'm not crazy about the current clone tool, though I'm slowly getting used to it.) If ACR in PS had all the image modification features of LR, I'd have no need for the latter.

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I think one of the things I like about Lightroom - and I am new to both programs other than occasional dabbles in PS on other peoples machines - is that it does not change the original. I know from doing design work that with photoshop it is quite easy to make a change to the original that is very hard to undo - when I do use photoshop I do so on copies because of this.

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Ditto once again. I've been involved with Photoshop since version one and a daily user since 2.5 which, if I recall correctly, is when they introduced layers. Back then each new version was a major step forward. Now it's become a kind of dance where a lot of the steps seem to be sideways. (I'm not crazy about the current clone tool, though I'm slowly getting used to it.) If ACR in PS had all the image modification features of LR, I'd have no need for the latter.

I've been using Photoshop a long time as well. I have no doubt that what has happened is that Photoshop began to plateau out around CS6. The big advances between CS4 and CS6 were under the bonnet so to speak (hood on the far side of the Atlantic). There were very signifcant speed boosts - ability to use large amounts of RAM, rewritten graphics engine and so on. But what do you give the app that has almost everything. Adobe realised that they couldn't keep enticing users to upgrade and hence the subscription model. However, there have been some very neat features added since CC arrived - my favourites are the ability to select focus area and more recently select a subject. Quite magical and very fast.

As for the clone tool, I'm not too clear about what you mean there. The introduction of the healing brush and related tools has made the clone tool redundant for a lot of tasks as they do a much better job for a lot of cloning. Well worth tackling if you are not using them.

My approach nowadays is to use Lightroom to go as far as possible on the raw images. I don't use the freehand brush tools in Lightroom as I find that the grad and radial filters do an excellent job for most images. If I need to do detailed work I tend to use Photoshop as the selection, cloning and healing tools are stlll way ahead of Lightroom. I never use ACR any more as I think the Lightroom Develop interface is very good and the database is excellent. But life without Photoshop is unimaginable still and probably always will be.

In Photoshop I use adjustment layers and alpha channels so that all work besides spotting is non-destructive on the original image. I save files that I work on in Photoshop in PSD format and keep them. I don't understand the reasoning behind doing work in Photoshop and not keeping the images as I more often than not want to go back and change something. Disk space these days is very cheap and time is precious.

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I think one of the things I like about Lightroom - and I am new to both programs other than occasional dabbles in PS on other peoples machines - is that it does not change the original. I know from doing design work that with photoshop it is quite easy to make a change to the original that is very hard to undo - when I do use photoshop I do so on copies because of this.

You can do most things non-destructively in Photoshop with adjustment layers. In fact you can do everything non-destructively if you use smart objects but I don't bother with that myself as I don't need it - adjustment layers and a rare extra background layer are more than sufficient.

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As for the clone tool, I'm not too clear about what you mean there. The introduction of the healing brush and related tools has made the clone tool redundant for a lot of tasks as they do a much better job for a lot of cloning. Well worth tackling if you are not using them.

I've been using the healing and other tools for a long time but still have occasional need for the rubber stamp. The thing that's hard to get used to for me, even though it no doubt is an improvement, is the way it shows what it will do before you click the mouse and it does it. I got very used to visualizing it mentally and still prefer that. It's just an old-dog-new-trick issue and I'll probably learn to like it eventually.
As for Lightroom's non-destructive feature that Starsphinx mentioned, I find it easy enough to save a duplicate copy before any imaging work. Since I'm a Fuji X shooter using Irridient X-Transformer as the first step, I'm not working on the original raw file anyway.

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I've been using the healing and other tools for a long time but still have occasional need for the rubber stamp. The thing that's hard to get used to for me, even though it no doubt is an improvement, is the way it shows what it will do before you click the mouse and it does it. I got very used to visualizing it mentally and still prefer that. It's just an old-dog-new-trick issue and I'll probably learn to like it eventually.
As for Lightroom's non-destructive feature that Starsphinx mentioned, I find it easy enough to save a duplicate copy before any imaging work. Since I'm a Fuji X shooter using Irridient X-Transformer as the first step, I'm not working on the original raw file anyway.

Ah ok - that can be turned off if you want in the Clone Source Panel - untick Show Overlay.

And yes it is necessary to use the Clone tool sometimes - near to boundaries where the healing tools can mess things up.

Don't mention it. Actually I had forgotten how to turn the clone preview on and off as I leave it on all the time. My approach in Photoshop is to first check the general prefs, then the options bar for the tool and then, if there is a panel associated with the tool or function, I'll check that. After that it's the online help or my Martin Evening book as a last resort.

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My use is similar to yours, Betty. What I would like is to have a version of Lightroom that dispenses with all the import-export, file-management stuff and lets me simply open a file, work on it, then close it the way I do with Silkypix, Photoshop, and everything else. None of this "Sorry, you're out of luck, that file was opened once before and you're jolly well going to have to hunt for it if you want to open it again." Then if I can't locate it I resort to changing the name of the file in order to fool Lightroom into opening it.

You can do that with Adobe Camera Raw that comes with Photoshop CC. It is exactly the same as Lightroom except doesn't have the file management. I don't use Lightroom, just Camera Raw. I open the folders in Bridge than the files in Camera Raw. Or sometimes directly from Photoshop where they will open in Camera Raw automatically first.

When using Camera Raw, I will open the files in Photoshop as Smart Objects. That way I can simply double click the image in the layers panel and it will throw it back in to Camera Raw if I want to do more adjustments there.

Jill

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My experience: Have been using LR since I got a digital camera maybe 12 years ago. Never wanted to use photoshop, and was very against their creative cloud renting scheme vs owning a stand alone version of LR. Well, I got a new computer, new lenses not supported by the last LR and decided to try the CC. I have to say that it is pretty good and I really feel stupid for not having used Photoshop earlier It is so easy and clean to remove people/logo with the stamp tool that it is saving me tons of time now for my commercial stock photo (mostly not here on Alamy). Really worth it in this case. Now If I were doing only editorial, I don't think the price would be worth it and might have kept a LR standalone.

Edited August 22, 2018 by BobPhoto

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You can do that with Adobe Camera Raw that comes with Photoshop CC. It is exactly the same as Lightroom except doesn't have the file management. I don't use Lightroom, just Camera Raw. I open the folders in Bridge than the files in Camera Raw. Or sometimes directly from Photoshop where they will open in Camera Raw automatically first.

When using Camera Raw, I will open the files in Photoshop as Smart Objects. That way I can simply double click the image in the layers panel and it will throw it back in to Camera Raw if I want to do more adjustments there.

Jill

Coincidentally, I'd started doing just that. There appears to be a difference in the way chromatic aberration is treated, but I don't have much trouble with that from the few lenses in my kit anyway. Since I end up on Photoshop, doing the raw processing there saves me a step.

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My use is similar to yours, Betty. What I would like is to have a version of Lightroom that dispenses with all the import-export, file-management stuff and lets me simply open a file, work on it, then close it the way I do with Silkypix, Photoshop, and everything else. None of this "Sorry, you're out of luck, that file was opened once before and you're jolly well going to have to hunt for it if you want to open it again." Then if I can't locate it I resort to changing the name of the file in order to fool Lightroom into opening it.

I have to say I have never seen a message that remotely resembles that in Lightroom. The Lightroom search engine is incredibly fast and searches can be based on keywords, file names, labels, dates, camera metadata. It is really worth exploring.

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Sorry everyone, I've been real busy with family stuff on one hand and a new PC which I'm trying to get up and running properly on the other. I'll get back to this thread in time. Sorry if you thought I'd been rudely ignoring it. Cheers

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I have to say I have never seen a message that remotely resembles that in Lightroom. The Lightroom search engine is incredibly fast and searches can be based on keywords, file names, labels, dates, camera metadata. It is really worth exploring.

Have to, somewhat reluctantly, agree. I hated LR when I first started to use it, as I felt all of this database stuff was getting in the way of my processing photos. However I now do most of my keywording in LR, and am able to rapidly search for images within the database. The ease of copying between, or editing, sets of keywords, in LR is something that Alamy Image Manager can only aspire to. I currently have around 25000 images in my LR catalogue, and have not encountered any speed issues, despite using the old standalone version.

I still don't find LR particularly intuitive, and probably don't use it to its full potential, but I have a workflow that suits me.

My copy of PS is decidedly ancient, but, again, I don't find it sluggish in use. The one area where it is slightly flaky is when using the image distort filter, when it requires some thinking time before leaping into life. However there are similar, although not so refined, tools in LR that can often be used in its place. Interestingly, the two programs provide different types of fix in these instances, and I find that it is often worth experimenting with both to get the best results.

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I have to say I have never seen a message that remotely resembles that in Lightroom. The Lightroom search engine is incredibly fast and searches can be based on keywords, file names, labels, dates, camera metadata. It is really worth exploring.

You're no doubt right, but I have a problem with this aspect of Lightroom. It could be because you're living in 2018 and I'm living in nineteen eleventy-eight. My idea of file management is I save the image to a folder, which has a name. If I need to search by name, number or whatever I use Agent Ransack.

Edited August 23, 2018 by DDouglink

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You're no doubt right, but I have a problem with this aspect of Lightroom. It could be because you're living in 2018 and I'm living in nineteen eleventy-eight. My idea of file management is I save the image to a folder, which has a name. If I need to search by name, number or whatever I use Agent Ransack.

You are correct. I am no longer young but I am refusing to get old by continuing to learn and adapt as much as I can . I firmly believe that one is old when one stops wanting to learn or thinking it is not possible.

Really the only reason I use a folder structure is for ease of backing up. Finding files with Lightroom is lightning fast with one or two keywords as well as dates and filenames.

Edited August 24, 2018 by MDM

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You are correct. I am no longer young but I am refusing to get old by continuing to learn and adapt as much as I can . I firmly believe that one is old when one stops wanting to learn or thinking it is not possible.

Really the only reason I use a folder structure is for ease of backing up. Finding files with Lightroom is lightening fast with one or two keywords as well as dates and filenames.

Love the philosophy - and I share it. Let us never stop learning, never stop looking for new experiences, and keep ourselves young at least mentally

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Love the philosophy - and I share it. Let us never stop learning, never stop looking for new experiences, and keep ourselves young at least mentally

Yes. It's a real philosophy for me as well that I bring into my life. I love tackling new things and I've been like that all my life. If I can keep the physical side fit as well as the mental, I'll be more than happy.